What was Saddam's biggest blunder?

You are here

Let's be honest for a second. There are many countries all over the world that commit heinous human rights violations. Some may get the attention of the US with the birth of the new foreign policy I have so dubbed the 9/11 doctrine.

However, the vast majority of them will probably continue to exist and merrily murder and rape its citiczens with the only consequences being a verbal chastizing every few years from the world community. Therefore, Saddam Hussein could have stayed the tyrannical leader of Iraq, but something he did crossed the line. What was it? Was it hoarding weapons of mass destruction?

Was he so blind to believe that we wouldnt go to war now?

Is he under the impression that we wont get him? We havent gotten Bin Laden. Yet Bin Laden's influence has drastically decreased.

If he conceded to the French and/or Germans that he would allow them to remove WMD (with significant progress in the short term), would he not be able to maintain his hold on his country? Is this because the actual WMD are the strangling hands?

Or has Saddam backed himself into a corner where any concession to the world community would crumble his party's fanatical zeal?

""Pol Pot killed one point seven million Cambodians, died under house arrest, well done there. Stalin killed many millions, died in his bed, aged seventy-two, well done indeed. And the reason we let them get away with it is they killed their own people. And we''re sort of fine with that. [Saddam] killed people next door. Oh, stupid man. After a couple of years we won't stand for that, will we?""

The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people -- Thing I saw on the Internet

He killed his neighbors. Oddly, it seems to me all that brought him was entrance to a bigger stage.

How many years did Stalin''s reign last?

How many years did Pol Pot''s regime last?

Saddam killed his neighbors and became a household name. He has lasted 12 years post blunder.

Im leaning towards his infatuation with WMD. If he gets rid of them he can still play all the political mind games with impunity.

I think the combination of the lack of WMD and refrain from attacking his neighbors would allow him to work his magic for another 12 years.

The kicker is, if he gets rid of a lot of WMD he doesnt have to get rid of all of them. If he got rid of %50 of his WMD as fast as humanly possible, he''d prolly be able to disguise a good portion of the rest from the now appeased world community.

Hussein is surrounded by yes-sayers. Nobody of his ministers would dare to tell him the full truth about the bad position/situation and about the condition of his army as they fear for their life if they are to deliver bad news. It''s safe to say that he''s living in his own reality because bad news hardly make its way to him. He in fact might be convinced that they somehow can win this war or hold the enemy out of the city for months. Caught in a network of desinformation he''s responsible for.

I have to agree with JD there, who wants to be the messenger when the mesenger normally gets shot. That''s why he doesn''t have a lot more of his army in Baghdad because he''s afraid of his own military trying to launch a coup.

We also didn''t spend billions of dollars a year with Stalin or Pol Pot keeping soldiers in theater, bombing SAM sites, and keep playing the-run-around-with-the-WMD''s inspection game.

At least, not in quite the same capacity... We actually believed that Stalin was going to invade Europe eventually and more importantly he had the ability to do it.

This is just something else to think about. People who go around screaming, ""NO BLOOD FOR OIL"" need to pull their collective heads out of their asses and realize every war is multifaceted and this one is no different.

Im leaning towards his infatuation with WMD. If he gets rid of them he can still play all the political mind games with impunity.

You must be out of your mind. He could burn every last weapon of destruction live, on international television, and he''s still going to be either killed in war or arrested on war crimes. It''s over. There is no more diplomacy, no more anything. This is war. Don''t tell me you actually think the U.S. would consider stopping short of ending his regime? That notion makes me giggle.

"People in general have no principles, they do not believe in property rights (except as those rights apply to them), and they will steal all they want as long as they stand no risk of getting arrested for it. -GreatAjax on Piracy